Minnetonka Cave

 It is a nine room cave full of stalactites, stalagmites and banded travertine.

9 miles up St Charles Creek Rd in St Charles Canyon, west of St Charles ID

Minnetonka is a guided cave tour, and it is really quite busy in the summer. If you’re thinking about showing up at 9:45 and getting on the 10:00 tour, you’re going to be disappointed. That’s the reason they request that you get a reservation in advance for large groups (the problem is, you have to get it 2 weeks in advance).

While you are waiting for the tour to start, look at the rocks in the rock wall near the sign...we found lots and lots of fossils in the rocks.

The cave is really nice, though. We’ve visited a lot of caves, and what we liked about this one is how open it is. Some of the caves we’ve been in have been pretty tight and in Timpanogos, you have to do some pretty narrow stuff, even though it’s guided. Minnetonka though, is very open. It’s also very wet. This cave is alive, and water will drip on your head.

If there’s a draw back to this cave, it is the stairs. As you go down deeper into the mountain, you go down a lot of stairs (almost 900, they say). These stairs tend to be a bit wet and slippery in places, too. Kids of all ages will do it well, but grandma and her bum knee may not want to come along.

One interesting thing we learned is that Minnetonka is a true cave– that is, it only has one entrance. In other words, you will go out the same opening you came in. This is not true of most of the other caves we’ve visited.

After all that waiting, Minnetonka Cave didn’t disappoint. You should definitely visit if you are in the Bear Lake area.

The brief walk to the cave entrance is stunningly beautiful.

***Minnetonka Cave stays a cool 40 degrees, so bring a jacket and gloves.
***When we visited there was a rule that you couldn't be wearing anything that had previously been in a different cave. This included hats, backpacks, shoes, clothes, jewelry, etc.

*We visited it in July 2016